


just on the outside of being alone

by thepensword



Series: de la lune [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Kinda, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Team as Family, btw lucretia is 18 so keep that in mind, character exploration, character piece, it's less abuse and more like. emotional neglect., it's nothing severe but basically lucretia is sad and lonely and she has always been sad and lonely, they love their sweet introverted little sister, what makes lucretia tick? in this essay i will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 04:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: Lucretia is no stranger to loneliness.(A look inside Lucretia's life before and during the Stolen Century, and the walls she built that enabled her to bring it to an end.)





	just on the outside of being alone

**Author's Note:**

> do you know how close i came to making the title a dear evan hansen lyric. do you? it was damn close. 'which lyric?' oh you know. you KNOW.
> 
> anyway hi yes this is my first taz fic and i wrote it in a state of semi-wakefulness because when i tried to write it during the day i had no ideas and apparently the only time i can write is at fucking. 1am. help me.
> 
> i can't think of anything that would require a trigger warning but keep in mind that this is sort of a melancholy/sad/lonely fic and please be careful.

Lucretia is no stranger to loneliness.

Her childhood is a quiet one. She is the only child of wealthy parents, and as such she is often left alone. She will never forget the feel of the windowsill against her spine; she will always know the whisper of pages beneath her fingers like she knows her own heartbeat, and she will always remember the appearance of her reflection, backed by sunlight or rainclouds through thick-paned glass and pale blue curtains. 

She hasn’t any friends. Not real ones, anyway, just the ones she spins from shadows or reflections, dancing figures carved from sunbeams. She is lonely, but that’s alright. Without any comparison, who is to know what loneliness truly is?

Sometimes she hears servant children laughing in between the hedges. Sometimes she wishes she could join them. But she does not, and she does not complain about it.

After all, she is no stranger to loneliness.

 

* * *

 

The Academy is an opportunity unparalleled.

She is one of the youngest, one of the brightest, but she is also one of the quietest. Her parents’ wealth has no meaning here, where admittance is based purely on merit, yet she knows the expectations will follow her wherever she goes. Lucretia is high-born and well-raised, and so she must behave as such. 

Her teachers nod approvingly. Her peers watch her warily, distrustful of her assumed hauteur. And so they keep their distance, and Lucretia is content to remain quiet and small in the backs of classrooms.

It’s alright. It’s not much change, after all. She has spent a lifetime sitting quiet in corners. And besides, despite having no friends, she’s happy here. She’s learning. She’s growing.

(And even if sometimes it is hard to live constantly on the fringes, she is no stranger to loneliness.)

 

* * *

 

 

She meets the twins first.

“I’m sorry,” she says. It is late, and dark, and the communal kitchen is purple and gray and surprisingly occupied. She’d come here for tea, but here are the twins, the stars of the academy; they are even more beautiful up close than they are from a distance.

“Oh, don’t apologize!” says the female twin, and waves her hand dismissively. Her name is Lup, Lucretia knows, because there is little that Lucretia does not know. Her brother’s name is Taako, and he is leaning against the counter with a wooden spoon in his mouth.

There is something in the oven. It’s starting to smell delicious. 

“We’re making cookies,” says Taako at her glance. “And they’re gonna be the best damn cookies you’ve ever tasted, if you want to wait for them.”

Lucretia, for a moment, almost agrees. But then she remembers her manners. She does not know the twins, and she is sure they do not actually want her here. It is politeness that urges him to offer the cookies. The twins are notoriously private, and notoriously distrustful; why would they offer anything to quiet, aloof Lucretia, high-born and distant, other than politeness?

(This is what she tells herself. She does not want to confront the fact that she is afraid to be in a room with them for so long that she will start to be noticed. It is a strange, unfamiliar feeling to be looked at. She is so used to going unseen.)

“That’s alright,” she says. “Thank you very much for the offer.” And then she flees.

She never does get her tea.

(She is no stranger to loneliness. But sometimes loneliness feels like safety.)

 

* * *

 

 

She meets the captain in the gardens.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he says. He is standing like a general would, with shoulders back and chin lifted. He looks positively regal.

Her mother would approve.

“Yes,” says Lucretia, looking up from her notebook. And then, reflexively, “Sir.”

Davenport waves his hand. “There’s no need for that, not here. It’s too nice out for formalities.” He sits on the bench beside her, respectful inches between them, and glances only briefly at her work. “Lucretia, was it?”

“Yes,” says Lucretia again, and bites down on the ‘sir’ that wishes to follow it. 

“You have beautiful penmanship, Lucretia. Do you enjoy writing?”

This is an easy question to answer, of course. Writing has been her only friend for as long as she can remember. “Yes, of course, sir,” she says. “It’s my favorite pastime.”

Davenport nods and hums softly. “What makes you enjoy it so much?”

Lucretia thinks of the corners of rooms, of sitting quiet in chairs while adults talk. She thinks of the windowsill overlooking the grounds, of the scritch-scratch of her quill creating worlds she will never see. She thinks of loneliness, and of building herself companionship from paper and ink.

“The world is full of stories,” she says. “And even if I cannot live them, if I write them down then that is close enough.”

And Davenport smiles.

(She is no stranger to loneliness, but that day she reevaluates loneliness and perhaps for the first time recognizes the barricades she has built to keep it away.)

 

* * *

 

 

She does not meet the others until she is chosen for the exploratory crew. It is a miracle that she is chosen at all, so even after her name appears on the list she remains quiet and well-mannered. This is not something she can afford to mess up. 

There are large conferences and quiet meetings. There are late-night gatherings and getting-to-know-each-others. Companionship is sewn between them, but Lucretia feels the wall between them and her as plain as day. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be close to them, and more that she doesn’t know how.

It is Magnus who pulls the first brick from the wall. It is late, two nights before they are meant to embark, and the Institute has thrown them a celebration. It is loud, it is bright, it is crowded, and Lucretia is definitely not hiding.

Okay. So maybe she’s a little bit hiding. But there’s a chair in the corner and a notebook in her hands and this is her job, isn’t it? She is the mission’s record-keeper, so records she will keep.

“Hey,” says Magnus, and grabs another chair from a nearby table. He drags it so that it is beside her chair but facing the opposite direction and sits down on it backwards, arms folded and resting on the chairback.

“Hello,” says Lucretia politely, not really sure what he’s here for.

“You should get out there and dance,” says Magnus. “Or drink. Something fun. Live a little, you know? Fill yourself up with this world before we leave it.”

That makes sense, she supposes, but she still doesn’t know why he’s here. “I’m writing it down,” she says, and shows him the neat lines of text and the sketches she’d drawn. “So we can take it with us.”

He nods. Chuckles a little. “That makes sense,” he says, and smiles. “And it makes a good excuse to hide.”

He says it gently, but Lucretia jumps a little. Magnus’ eyes are soft and warm and brown like the chocolate in the ridiculous fondue fountain that’s standing proudly on the food table. There’s a kindness about him that almost,  _ almost  _ loosens Lucretia’s tongue and breaks down the wall that seals her lips. 

Magnus is very much like one of the friends she had painted herself from the sunbeams through her bedroom window as a child. He is bright and warm and he feels so safe.

“I’m not hiding,” says Lucretia. “I just like to write.”

Magnus shrugs and lifts his eyebrows but does not argue with her. “Alright,” he says. “But just so you know, you don’t need to hide from us. We’re your crew, now.”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know how. But he sits there with her for the rest of the night, until the loudness of the room becomes unbearable and Lucretia retires to her bed.

She is no stranger to loneliness, but that night she learns there is something indescribably nice about a quietly interrupted solitude, or at least a solitude that is somewhat less alone.

 

* * *

 

 

They leave in a fanfare, excitement brewing in their hearts, and then the sky turns to darkness. They fly away as their world is consumed and then it is only them in the blackness of the sky, and then it is only them on a planet with no people. 

Seven of them, the last of their world. They cling to each other in their solitude, and Lucretia wraps herself in a blanket of her own writings and wishes she knew how to let the others in.

 

* * *

 

 

Barry she comes to know through quiet evenings in his lab. He has science to conduct, important research that, they hope, will somehow help them beat the Hunger. And his research must be recorded, so there she sits with her quill poised above the page and her ears, as ever, open. 

The thing about Barry is that sometimes, when he’s really engaged in his work, he’ll forget about things like eating and sleeping. And the thing about Lucretia is sometimes when she’s watching him, she’ll forget to.

But maybe it’s good that they forget together, because maybe then they remind each other. When Lucretia yawns, or her stomach growls, Barry will look up and smile sheepishly and usher them both to the kitchen or to bed. And slowly, as Lucretia begins to let down her walls, she’ll remind him, too.

It’s a strange sort of symbiotic relationship; the both of them working, the both of them taking care of each other. It’s strange, and quiet, but not bad.

_ No, not bad, _ reflects Lucretia as his expression of concentration takes shape beneath her quill.  _ Not bad at all. _

 

* * *

 

 

Merle comes to sit with her as she watches the sun set. That’s  _ sun _ , singular—it’s strange, to look into a sky that’s blue, of all colors, and see only one sun. There’s something different in every world they come to, but the appearance of the sky will always be the strangest to Lucretia.

“Hey there,” says Merle amiably, and settles down beside her on the Starblaster’s deck. She smiles at him and dips her brush into the cup of paint-clouded water that sits before her crossed legs.

“Hello,” says Lucretia, and for a while they do not say anything else. The air is cool with the evening and crickets chirp in the surrounding field.

When the light has faded too much for Lucretia to see what she’s doing anymore, she closes up her watercolors and stands. Merle remains on the deck, eyes closed as he breathes in the fresh night air.

“Goodnight,” says Lucretia, and for a moment she thinks he has fallen asleep, but then he opens his eyes and says, “Lucretia.”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you talk to any of us?”

It’s not accusatory. He asks it simply, innocently, like he genuinely wants to know. And Lucretia wants to give him an answer but she’s not really sure she has one.

“I do talk to you,” she says in a tone just shy of petulant that would have made her mother frown. “I’m talking to you right now.”

Merle shakes his head. “Nah, I mean  _ really  _ talk to us. Like we’re your friends, instead of just your coworkers. It’s been over a year, Luce. You don’t have to hold us at arms’ length anymore.”

“Maybe I don’t know how not to,” says Lucretia, and the words surprise even her. She flushes, wishing she could take them back, but Merle is smiling.

“Then we’ll just have to teach you,” he says. “Goodnight, Luce.”

“Goodnight,” murmurs Lucretia again, and slips away.

Things are, perhaps, a bit more relaxed after that.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s funny, how once something appears to be gone completely, it will resurge. For Lucretia, this is how her walls behave.

It is cycle after cycle, year after year. Dying and running and fighting, but also living and laughing and learning to love. And they  _ do _ love each other, more than anything; they have long since ceased to be crewmates and are now something like a family.

Lucretia lowers her walls. She laughs loud enough to be heard. She teases and is teased. She is not afraid to ask questions, to touch or be touched, to cry when she needs it.

Then they enter the sixty-fifth cycle.

Lucretia marks it in her book at the start of the year in stark blank ink, pen pressed so deeply into the page that it indents the paper. The lines are more crooked than usual, larger and less neat, like her hand had been trembling as it wrote.

It had been. Just as her whole body had been. For three days she couldn’t stop shaking.

In Cycle 65, Lucretia is alone. 

 

* * *

 

 

She wakes up in the wreckage of a downed ship.

Her head is pounding. There’s blood on her face, and a hole in the ship’s wall. It will still fly, she thinks, but not cleanly.

But most important is that she is alone.

Lucretia waits for as long as she dares in the wreckage of the Starblaster. She waits and she waits and no one comes, no one and nothing but the enchanted searchlights sweeping through the shadows. She bites her lip and curls her fists so tightly around the controls that her knuckles are pale, and then she casts her strongest cloaking charm and flies away.

She does not dare go looking for the others. She does not dare search for the Light. If she is struck down, then all is lost, and they cannot afford that.

So Lucretia spends the next year running. She spends the next year hiding. She spends it in fear and in anxiety and in despair.

She spends it alone.

 

* * *

 

 

There are thin walls rebuilt from that cycle. The others watch her like she’s something fragile, like the wrong word could break her, but she’s stronger now. Solitude had been a cage, once, but in this case it was a forge. Lucretia holds herself steadier and speaks with more authority and if she isolates herself, it is because she has chosen to do so.

Cycle 65 was, perhaps, the worst year of her life. Several times she’d thought she was bound to go mad. But despite the crushing despair of the loneliness, she’s almost grateful for it.

Now she knows what she can do all on her own.

 

* * *

 

 

She still lets them in. Still keeps them close. Still loves them more than anything. And she’s so, so tired of watching them die. So afraid of losing them for good.

“I can put up a barrier,” she says, and they shake their heads. They put her plan on the backburner, and she lets them, and then their other plan goes so, so terribly wrong.

“It’s for the best,” assures Davenport. There is only a slight tremble in his hands to bely his tension as his Oculus grants illusory armies into a warlord’s hands, as Lup’s gauntlet scorches cities, as Taako’s stone turns the earth to gold, as Faerun splinters under the power of the Relics. The Light of Creation was meant to build, not destroy, yet here it is; split into fractions and destroying the world around it—and it’s all their fault.

The old Lucretia, the naive Lucretia, the Lucretia who sat in the corner and recorded and did not speak, would have done nothing. But she is not that Lucretia anymore, so she does what has to be done.

Lucretia hatches a plan. She fills out every gap. It’ll only be for a little while _,_ she promises herself. Just long enough for her to seal out the Hunger. _They’ll forgive me once it’s done, once they see that I was right._

And so she gathers her journals and prepares herself once again for the solitude that she hopes more than anything will be a brief one.

She watches her life dissolve in Fisher’s waters and she watches the blankness fall across Magnus’ eyes, betrayal and horror washed away by confusion and nothingness. She watches this and she knows that there is no turning back.

Lucretia holds herself together as she steers them all to her new homes. She pulls herself up and she keeps things locked down inside of her until the others are safe, and settled, and she is back on the Starblaster by herself.

And then she crumples.

She sits with her back pressed to Fisher’s tank and holds herself tightly and cries and cries as an entire lifetime turns to static in the minds of those she has come to love. She cries and cries and cries and when she is spent she gets to her feet and readies herself for her mission.

Lucretia draws her spine straight like a board and her forces her face smooth like glass. She presses one hand to Fisher’s tank, an apology of sorts, and then she begins.

 

After all, she is no stranger to loneliness.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> whoops i made myself sad ;(  
> if i also made you sad feel free to yell at me in the comments or even visit my [tumblr](https://thepensword.tumblr.com). i don't bite!
> 
> thanks for reading! if you liked this then stay tuned for the four fics i wrote for taz pride week and will be posting over the next few days.
> 
> bye!


End file.
